Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1887-01-21
DIR. TALMAGE.
THE BROOKLYN DIVINE'S
SUNDAY SERMON.
Subject: distribution of Rewards, +"

TEXT; "He shall dipide the spoil ,vith the
trong."-Isaiah lii, l2.
My family, who saw 1t with their
| own own eyes year before last, tell me
tnat In the Coliseum at Rome. where
prosecutors use1 to let out the half.starved
lions 10 eat up Christians, there is now
pIanted the figure of a cross And rejoice
70 know that the upright piece of wood
nailed TO transverse piece has become the
SYMBOL not more of suffering than of vic
Tory 1t Is of Christ the Conqueror that my
text speaks. As kingly warrior, having
su9dued an empire, might divide the palaces,
una mansions, and cities, and valleys and
mountains among his officers, So Christ is
! gong to divide up all the earth, and all the
ss,, heavens, among his people, and you and |
| Wlll nave TO take our share if we are strong
IN faith and strong in our Christian loyality'
Ior my text declares it: "He shall divide the
| spoil with the strongn
| The capture of this round planet for Christ
Is not SO much of job as you might Imagine,
when the church takes Off its coat and rolls
| up lts sleeves for the work, as it will There
are sixteen hundred millions of people now
IN the world, and four hundred and fifty mil
hons are Christians. Subtract four hundred
| and fifty millions who are Christians from
the sixteen hundred millions, and there are
eleven hundred and fifty millions left. Di-
vide the eleven hundred and fifty millions
| VINO are not Christians by the four hundred
| and fifty millions who are,Christians and YOU
| will find that we shall have to average less
Ghan three souls each brought by us into the
kingdom of God to have the whole world re-
deemed. Certainly with the church rising
up to It's full duty no Christian will be willing
to bring less than three souls into the king
dom OF God. hope and pray, Almighty
God, that may bring ten thousand. know
evangelists who have already brought SO, 900
each for the kingdom Of God There
are 2O0,OOO people whose one and only
and absorbing business in the world
is to save souls When you take
these things into consideration and that
the Christian will have to average the bring
ing OF only three souls each into the Kingdom
of our Lord, all impossibility vanishes from
this omnipoteut crusade. Why, 1 know a
Sabbath-school teacher who has for many
years been engaged in training the young,
and she has had different ella ses, and they
averaged to class, and they were all con-
verted, and times are 35, as near as
| can calculate. So that she brought her
into the Kingdom of God and had 81 to
spare. My grandmother prayed her chill
dren into the Kingdom of Christ and
her grandchildren, and l hope all her
great grandchildren, for God remembers
prayer seventy-fve years old as though it
We're only minute old, and so she brought
her three into the Kingdom of God and had
more than one hundred to spare. Besides
that, through the telephone and the tele-
graph this whole world within few years
will be brought within compass in ten min
utes. Beside that, omnipotence, omnipresence
and omniScience are presiding in this matter
of the worlds betterment, and that takes
the question of the worlds salvation out
of the impossibilities into the possibilities,
and then out of the possibilities into the
probabilities, and then out Of the probabili-
ties into the certainties. The building of the
Union Pacific Railroad from ocean to ocean
was greater undertaking than the girdling
of the earth with the Gospel, for the one en-
terprise depended upon the human arm while
the other depends upon Almightiness
Do really mean all the earth will surren-
der to Christi Yes. How about the unin-
viting portions! Will Greenland be evan
gelized! The possibility is that after a few
mored hundred brave lives are dashed out
among the icebergs, that great refrigerator,
the Polar region, will be given up to the wal
rus and bear, and that the inhabitants will
come down by invitation into tolerable cli-
mates, or those climates may soften, and, as
it has been positively demonstrated that the
Arctic region was once blooming garden
and fruitful field, those regions may change
climate and again be a blooming garden and
fruitful field. 1t is proved beyond contro-
versy by German and American scientists
that the Arctic regions were the first portions
of this world inhabitable; the world hot
beyond human endurance, those regions
were of course the first to be cool
enough for human foot and human
lung. 1t was positively proved that the Arc
tic region was tropical climate. Professor
Heer, of Zurich, says the remains of flowers
have been found in the Arctic, showing it
was like Mexico for climate, and it is found
| that the Arctic was the mother region from
which all the flowers descended. Professor
Wallace says the remains of all styles of ami
NAL life are found in the Arctic including
those animals that can live cnly in warm
climates. Now, that Arctic region which
has been demonstrated by flora and fauna,
and geological argument to have been as full
of vegetation and life as our Florida, may be
| turned back to its original bloom and glory,
| or 1t will be shut up as a museum of crystals
| for curiosity seekers once In while to visit.
But Arctic and Antarctic in some shape will
| belong to the Redeemer's realm.
What about other unproductive or repul-
s1ve regions All the deser.s will be fri
| gotod, the waters will be forced up to the
! great American desert between here and the
Pacific by machinery now known or yet to
be invented, and, as Great Salt Lake City
| has no rain and could not raise an apple or
| bushel of wheat in hundred years without
artificial help, but is now through such means
one great garden, so all the unprodurtive
parts of all the continents will be turne int )
harvest fields and orchards A half q ,.e,
DO Lesseps will furnish the world with al
the canals needed, and will change the cour5
OF rivers and open new lakes and the grea
Sahara Desert will be cut up into farm.
WIN an astounding yield of bushels to tn,
acre. The marsh will be drained of 1t,
waters and cured of its malaria. | saw the
other day what was for many years called
the British Swamp of Ohio, its chief crop
chlilS and fevers but now, by the tiles put in
| 10 the ground to carry off the surplus moisture
transformed into the richest and healthiest of
regions. The God who wastes nothing, |
think means that this world from nola tn
| pole, has to come to perfection of foliage
I and fruitage For that reason he keeps us
running through space, though so many fires
| are blazing down in its timbers and so many
mock terrors have threatened to dash it to
pieces. AS soon as the earth is completed
Christ will divide it up among the good.
| The reason he does not divide it now is be-
cause it is n5t done. A kind father will not
divide the apple among his children until the
apple is ripe In tulfillment of the New
| Iestmament promise: 1.-THE meek shall in
herit the EARTH" and the promise of the Old
| Testament: He shall divide the spoils With
| the strong" the worl will be apportioned to
those worthy to possess it,
1t is not so now In this country. capable
OF holding, feeding, clothing, and sheltering
twelve hundred million people, and where
we have only sixty million inhabitants we
| SohhOo 6VN hOuooO
work, and with their families an aggrega-
| tlon OF five millions that are on the verge of
starvation. Something wrong, most certain
| ly. In some way, there will be new ap-
| portionment Many of the millionaire es-
Uates VIII crack to pieces on the dissipations
of grandchildren, and then dissolve into the
| possession of the masses who now have an
insutiiciency.
What, you say, will become of the expen-
| sive and elaborate buildings now devoted to
| debasing amusementsi They will become
| schools art galleries. museums, gymnasiums,
and churches. The world is already getting
| disgusted with many of these anlIsements